Friday, May 15, 2020

Friday midday things

*I have done nothing productive yet today and that needs to change.

* Part of it is discussion about "the future of higher ed" and wondering again if my career is just a dead man walking at this point. That it's gonna go away and I'll need to find another way to both put food on the table and also wrest some meaning from life (because if you don't have that....well, if I don't have that....I might as well go out to the woods and lie down on the forest floor and wait for the the detritovores to eat me).

And maybe "put food on the table" and "wrest some meaning from life" will have to be two separate things in the future, and so I'll have to create TWO spheres and....yeah, it makes me want to lie down and not get back up.

* I think of Cottard's Delusion, the mental illness where a person believes fixedly they're already dead, and wondering if maybe my career isn't the reverse of that - that it's dead, but I don't see it yet, and so I go on reading about probability and trying to figure out how labs could be done online and maybe I just need to give it up?

* I made the mistake of watching this this morning:



Yes, it made me sad. I had forgotten how upsetting that scene was. But at the same time: I feel Artax hard here; some days I have really wanted just to sink down and give up. I've managed thus far to pull myself out - even in the absence of someone yelling at me "You're my FRIEND!....I LOVE you!" (which would help).

One of the big things I wrestle with in this is the loss of a feeling of meaning and purpose. It's not enough to get me out of bed in the morning to think about what I'm going to cook for dinner or that I'm going to knit; I need to feel like I'm doing something bigger or "contributing" in some way.

And maybe I need to unlearn that? Maybe this is my life now? Maybe I don't have an earthly purpose any more?

(I have lived too secular a life for too long to be able to comfortably go into the "our purpose is to love God and praise him" and have that be the end of that. I would make a poor nun, I see that now.)

* Oh, and to Jay's question: yes, I think heavy use of antimicrobials is going to lead to some knock-on problems. I know in my house I have gotten MUCH more lax - I used to Lysol my shoes after going out somewhere, and wipe down everything with bleach....I've stopped doing that. Apparently fomite transmission is fairly unlikely and ESPECIALLY if you wash your hands regularly (it's easier and faster for me to grab a bar of soap and turn on the tap than it is to laboriously wipe down every box from the grocery) and be careful about not touching your face unless your hands are clean....I never worried greatly about "sterile technique" in labs I worked in because I didn't need bacteriological sterility; instead, I would wash visible dirt off the countertops with a soapy paper towel at the end of the day.

I also don't use antibacterial soap; I have read much research saying that using regular soap but good "technique" (scrubbing and doing the 20 second thing) is equally effective and doesn't potentially select for "worse" microbes like antibacterials do. (And most plain soap is friendlier on the skin)

Though, I don't know. Fight a deadly virus vs. maybe temporarily disrupt one's microbiome? I'd take fighting the virus and just make sure to use probiotics later.

I do wash my hands after getting the mail or after opening a box containing something I've ordered. I've read that the virus breaks down after a day or two on cardboard so that might be an excessive thing, even.

I confess that part of me feels like some of that stuff beyond handwashing (which is an excellent way of preventing any kind of infection) is maybe a little bit of a ....Dumbo's feather? Like, taking hours and hours a week to wipe down every surface in your house multiple times and to wipe down literally everything you bring in, it's taking a lot of time and maybe giving a little sense of control, but it seems like the biggest chance of transmission is being in close quarters with an infective person for longer than about five minutes or so.

So the extreme I'm going to is not going out except for absolute necessities, and I'm not doing the wipe-down-everything procedure. Because I just...can't. It's too much time, and it's too much in-my-face about how "dangerous" the world is. So instead, when I have to go out and be around people I wear a mask, and I am careful to socially distance, and I wash my hands. But I'm not going to super-clean just because it might give an extra 0.05% protection.

I do still tend to change clothes and shower after having been out around people but I think that's maybe even a little paranoid.

* I don't know what made me think of it, but I decided I wanted to get back to embroidery. I started hunting around and I have....a LOT of kits ahead. Not all of them have the full complement of floss (and floss is one of those things there are some shortages of). I also....ordered a couple more (a unicorn, and one with simple flowers) from a place called 123Stitch, they came yesterday. (Again - short a few colors of floss, but some of it I had on hand).

I also found this while looking around:

That's just the first of two, but it's closer to finished than I remember. (I also forgot what color exactly I was using on the mom horse, so she is in two or three different shades of brown, but I think it will be OK. For the second one I will be more disciplined in my color choice).

It takes a LOT of time but....I have a lot of time right now. This is a better project for sitting at the desk for (better posture is important, and also, less likely to drop the needle into my lap and not be able to find it) so maybe I work on that here, either with one eye on my Twitter scroll, or half-watching something on Amazon Prime.


And yeah. I probably have close to a dozen of these (I also found the girl-in-a-garden one I was working on years ago, and that I tucked away during a fit of cleaning. I also found a nearly-finished toe-up sock, but just the one, and I can't remember what pattern I used! So I don't know. Maybe I unravel it and just reuse the yarn for something else, unless I can figure out what pattern it was....it's probably been at least eight years since I worked on it.)

Maybe the goal for me in this is to dig out a lot of unfinished stuff and finish it. (and I should also go through my closet and discard stuff that is either worn out or no longer fits, though I don't know if it's possible to donate good-but-just-no-longer-fits stuff right now)

Though I also really need to get to reading, and to start thinking about possible ways of doing labs online in the fall.

Edited to add: searching the archives of my blog turned this up. I will have to get out Knitting 24/7 and look at it - these socks do look like they are on size 0s so maybe I can finish this one and make the other?

Heh. Just as being a complete craft packrat is saving me now (I have SABLE - and in fact, will make the offer to my mom that if she needs something to do, I could send her some of my sock yarn), being a mental packrat of having a blog with archives is good because it acts as a sort of external hard drive for my memory. It would be nice to finish that sock and start the second one.....I hope I am guessing right about the pattern but I think I am.

Edited again: CONFIRMATION. That is the very yarn. So it's the traditional toe-up socks from Knitting 24/7 and it pleases me to think of finishing them some seven years after they were begun so maybe they are the next "new" project I pull out when I want to knit on something. (The first sock is very nearly done - I am on the cuff ribbing)

2 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

I've decided - and it's not just you and my wife - that you're all probably working TOO hard. And yet you think otherwise. "I have done nothing productive yet today..." Not true. You were pondering what is important to you. You figured out something HUGE, that "putting food on the table" and "wresting some meaning from life" might be two different things for you.

You are reading the fillyjonk map/GPS, attempting to ascertain what direction to go. It's important stuff.

And, at least based on what I've seen, the bar your employers have set is TOO DAMN HIGH. You/my wife/some of my former colleagues/some other teachers I know all seem to thing this working@home stuff is hard. Because it IS.

I hope you do get some embroidery done, or something that brings you joy. Because you are deserving of it. You are a good, worthy person. (Did I mention that before? I repeat myself when under stress. I repeat myself when under stress.)

Jay said...

Thank you for the confirmation. Somewhat irritated that all the soap at work has been replaced with antibacterial (which I assume isn't antiviral), but just trying to get along to the other side.

And supporting Roger, yes, working from home IS TOUGH. Back in the late 90's / early 00's, I tried forming a start-up company with a few other people located ~1,200 miles away. The 'virtual office' / remote working adds a whole level of complexity, uncertainty, and opportunity for miscommunication, misdirection, and misunderstanding, that is easily overcome in a simple face-to-face. Plus, I'm sure you now understand how comforting it is to simply stand in front of someone, even if that person is a potatohead you didn't think you wanted to see ever again :).

Please keep in mind: This too shall pass.